Who can forget Ravichandran Ashwin’s iconic leave during the 2022 T20 World Cup match against Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground? The off-spinner, who recently announced his retirement from international cricket, recalled his decision to let the ball go and how he made former Team India head coach Rahul Dravid exult after India pulled off a miraculous win against Pakistan.
When India needed two runs off the final ball, Mohammad Nawaz bowled a ball to Ashwin down the leg side. Instead of chasing the delivery, the 38-year-old Ashwin displayed street smartness by letting the ball go to the wicketkeeper for a wide.
On the next delivery, he took India home in a thrilling encounter, where Virat Kohli produced a knock for a lifetime.
“I hadn’t realised what I had done. I came back into the dressing room, and I haven’t seen Rahul Dravid exult like that — I mean, the second time I saw him exult was after the T20 World Cup, which we won recently. Until this moment, I hadn’t seen him exult. He came to me and said, That’s why we had you in the squad! That’s the way you deal with this,” Ashwin said on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast while speaking to Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton.
“I didn’t quite honestly realise the magnitude of what that moment meant. I just saw the ball, and just let it go. Then it hit Rizwan and came back. I think Virat was almost celebrating. He just used his hand to say who the hell leaves a ball like that,” he stated further.
Ashwin credits ‘gully cricket’
Speaking further about the match against Pakistan, Ashwin credited his gully cricket skills for the split-second decision he made in the final over of the game.
“That there has always been my problem. That’s the fight between me and the rest of the cricketing world that I’ve had all these years. It’s like the cricketing world doesn’t seem to accept that there is this gully cricketer who’s come, and he’s rubbed shoulders with us and remained organically a gully cricketer all through his life,” said Ashwin.
“It is quite a hard bit to accept and swallow because I don’t think gully cricket is so much of a thing in the Western world, in England, Australia and New Zealand,” he added.
In the match against Pakistan, Ashwin came out to bat when Dinesh Karthik lost his wicket in the final over.
Virat Kohli (82* off 53 balls), who had done the bulk of the job, was at the non-striker’s end for the final ball of the match, and it was all down to Ashwin, who had the task of scoring 2 runs from 1 ball. However, with Nawaz bowling a wide, the task for the all-rounder became a tad easy.
“For me, gully cricket’s a huge part of my life. Even very late, probably middle of my career, I was still playing gully cricket with my friends. It brought about a happiness that I don’t think I’ve encountered anywhere else in the world. Leaving a ball on the leg side is a crucial factor for us to get a free hit because all our games they have offside runs,” said Ashwin.
“So it is very nearly about bowling underarm into your legs since you can’t score runs on legside. So the moment you have a ball down the legside, it’s very natural for me to just flick open my hips and leave that ball. Most people would say I spent midnight oil on that, to be able to leave that ball which is not the case,” Ashwin added.
